runminton/pi-grok-mermaid — explained in plain English
Analysis updated 2026-05-18
See flowcharts and sequence diagrams drawn as readable art directly in the Pi terminal instead of raw code.
View class diagrams and entity relationship diagrams from AI generated Mermaid code without leaving the terminal.
Fall back safely to plain text code blocks when a diagram cannot be rendered.
Extend Pi with additional display features without touching how the AI model itself behaves.
| runminton/pi-grok-mermaid | cprecioso/tubecaster | farique/cursor-chat-explorer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stars | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Language | TypeScript | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last pushed | — | 2025-03-29 | — |
| Maintenance | — | Stale | — |
| Setup difficulty | easy | moderate | easy |
| Complexity | 2/5 | 2/5 | 2/5 |
| Audience | developer | general | developer |
Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.
Requires the Pi terminal assistant tool already installed to use this extension.
This project is an extension for Pi, a terminal based AI assistant tool, that makes Mermaid diagrams show up as readable Unicode diagrams right inside the terminal, instead of just showing raw diagram code as plain text. Mermaid is a common way of describing charts and flowcharts using simple text syntax, and normally a terminal cannot draw those as pictures, it can only show the underlying code. This extension fixes that specifically for Pi. The actual diagram drawing logic is not new work by this project. It comes from xAI's open source Grok Build tool, which already knows how to turn Mermaid text into box style Unicode art inside its own terminal interface. A separate developer, Simon Willison, pulled that specific piece out of Grok Build and compiled it into a standalone WebAssembly module so it could run anywhere, including in a browser. This project takes that same WebAssembly module and wires it into Pi's terminal display, so what was built for one tool now works inside another. Only the visual display layer of Pi is touched. The underlying assistant messages, saved session files, and how the AI model sees the conversation are left completely unchanged, so nothing about how Pi actually works is affected, only how certain diagrams are drawn on screen. If the diagram cannot be rendered for any reason, Pi simply falls back to showing the code as normal text, so nothing breaks. Supported diagram types include flowcharts, sequence diagrams, state diagrams, class diagrams, and entity relationship diagrams. Diagrams that are too wide for the terminal, or diagram types the underlying renderer does not support, fall back to showing the plain text version framed as a code block. You install it through Pi's own extension system, either from npm or directly from GitHub, then restart or reload Pi. It is written in TypeScript, and the vendored diagram renderer itself is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license, with full attribution details kept in the project's vendor folder.
A Pi terminal assistant extension that renders Mermaid diagrams as readable Unicode art in the terminal, reusing a diagram renderer borrowed from xAI Grok Build.
Mainly TypeScript. The stack also includes TypeScript, WebAssembly.
The vendored diagram renderer can be used freely, including commercially, as long as you keep the required attribution notices.
Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.
Mainly developer.
This repo across BitVibe Labs
double-check against the repo, no cap.